


If Only in Dreams

by fiveyaaas



Series: 5+1 Fics [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, it’s not super detailed but it is messed up, the handler and delores and ben are also characters but they’re p minor, the violence warning is because it describes Five when he’s an assassin, there’s also technically horrance in this but it needs a magnifying glass to be seen lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:02:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25735483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas
Summary: Five times Vanya and Five dream of one another (and one time they actually see one another for real).
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Series: 5+1 Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866838
Comments: 6
Kudos: 105





	If Only in Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> My French in here might be a grammatical nightmare, I went with the formal “you” which felt right in that scenario I used it? It’s been years since I studied French, so lmao. If you notice a grammatical problem, I can fix it though.
> 
> I’m going to write a few 5+1 fics for Fiveya as something to do when I feel stuck with other projects. 
> 
> Also, the violence warning is about an assignment Five gets for the commission. It’s not detailed at all, but I felt like it was bad enough for a warning still.

**I. Age Fourteen: Vanya**

There is a moment between wake and sleep when one exists in the blissful state of dreams and reality. For that instant of time, anything impossible in reality is possible before somebody truly wakes up. 

If Five were there, he could probably give an actual reason, could explain the different types of sleep cycles and their benefits on the body. He didn’t necessarily study psychology, but he had a basic understanding of most things and if he didn’t and wanted to learn, he would. Vanya did not care to learn the science, though she imagined she probably could if she really wanted to. It was more that she didn’t want to give reason for the moments when she was between wake and sleep because she worried the hope she felt in those moments might diminish. 

And she lived for that hope. 

There was a time when she had nightmares from her medicine. She had been on a lower dose, though, and she was told that they would go away with the higher dose she was given after Five’s disappearance. Part of her wanted to ask Allison if she would rumor her to never wake up because, in her best dreams, he had never left. 

Once, when Vanya had nightmares, she was not scared upon her waking. There were a few times when Five slept in her bed with her, and there were a few times where she did not get caught crawling into his bed (she always worried Five would think she was an intruder and attack, but he always either would be awake or would check before he attacked). On the nights they did not sleep in the same bed though, she took comfort in knowing that he was near, and that, if she truly wanted, she could go to him. 

Most of her dreams were not nightmares, but they rarely were about Five. She figured that when she barely ever even heard mention of him, her brain could not conjure him up. 

Sometimes, though, she would see his face in her dreams. Those dreams, even though they were rare, always motivated her to fall asleep after she made the peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich for him. 

Some people were capable of telling when they were dreaming. Vanya was not one of those people. 

So when she saw Number Five’s face hovering over her own, she didn’t think anything of it all. 

“You’re back,” she whispered. 

“I’d always come back,” he said, running his thumb against her cheek. She felt herself smiling up at him, reaching for his face which looked almost foggy around the edges. 

The second she had the thought, it slipped from her head. 

“When did you go?” she asked.

“The future,” he said, with a smile. 

“What was it like?”

“Absolutely perfect.”

She truly grinned then. “Follow me.”

They were in the kitchen, not having gone down the stairs at all. She was confused but only for a second. She grabbed the sandwich she had made before going to sleep and handed it over to him. 

“Vanya,” Five said. 

“Yeah?”

“There’s something I always wanted to do.”

She stared up at him, watching the clench of his jaw before he placed his hand against her cheek. 

“Five-“

He met her eyes, leaning down and moving closer. Their lips were seconds from touching when-

“ _ Vanya!” _

“Five?” she asked. Then her eyes opened and she felt like a bucket of water had been poured on her and she sat up abruptly. 

Klaus frowned down at her. “Clearly, I’m not Five.”

“What do you want, Klaus?” It must’ve come out sharper than Klaus expected because he said that she was going to be late for breakfast. 

“Why did you come in here?” she tried to soften her voice, still rattled.

“Ben told me that I had to be nicer to you because Five is gone now.”

“Oh.”

Ben was not her friend the way Five had been, but he had been close with Five and so by extension, he was her friend. 

“Were you dreaming about Five?” Klaus asked, pulling her up. 

“Yeah.”

“Gross. Spare me the details. Unless they’re good.”

**II. Age Twenty: Five**

The dust left his mind when he fell asleep. Unfortunately, sleep was a struggle to reach. He learned what he was pretty sure was a month ago that drinking helped the sleep come though. 

He dismissed Delores’s concerns as he took another shot of Everclear. It was disgusting, but it had the best effects of any of the ones he’d tried so far. He was trying to fall asleep as quickly as possible, he’d gotten hurt walking today and wanted to sleep away the pain. 

Delores made a comment about why he really wanted to fall asleep, and he felt guilty for yelling at her. She turned away though, so he took a fifth shot. He would pass out pretty soon, and then he’d be with Vanya again. 

Delores was right, but he didn’t want her to talk about Vanya. He kept trying to tell her that Vanya was not to be talked about, but she didn’t care. 

He felt the sleep finally pull him under after his face flushed horribly and tingled from the amount of alcohol he had consumed. 

She was there immediately. 

“Five,” she greeted. She set down a manuscript for her book, beaming at him. 

“Hey,” he said, already leaning down to kiss her. 

The difference between Five and Vanya’s dreams was that Five knew when he was dreaming. He knew that he had to talk to her immediately. 

When he kissed her, she didn’t taste like ashes, and he couldn’t bring himself to feel guilt for it. 

“You took so long to come home,” she told him. “What took so long?”

“I was busy on a project,” he lied. It was because he couldn’t go to sleep even after drinking some wine from his supply. He was going to have to get stronger liquor and more of it if he wanted to come home to her on time.

“Was it Delores again?” she asked, and she looked so sad.

“Don’t be upset,” he begged. “Please, V-“

She stared at the manuscript in her hands. “I shouldn’t have written this.”

“What?” His voice sounded panicked to his own ears. He knew that she was mad, but this was his  _ lifeline.  _

“You don’t deserve anything from me,” she snapped. 

“Vanya, this is the only time I can be with you.”

Her face looked cruel, unlike the Vanya he knew. “You don’t deserve that either.”

She vanished in a storm of ash, and she was gone. 

He woke up, already reaching for the bottle of Everclear. When Delores shot him another disapproving look, he ignored it.

**III. Age Twenty-Four: Vanya**

When Vanya woke up, she expected to see the guy from the bar. The man laying beside her did look like him, but at the sight of the tattoo, she knew that the man was just the imitation she wanted to fall asleep with. 

“Five,” she breathed, shaking him awake. “God, you should’ve told me you got in! I would’ve left the lights on. Where have you been?”

Five yawned, and she smiled at him. He’d gotten so tall and threatening over the years, but he still looked like the kid who taught her how to throw a punch when she had been 8. 

He flicked a brow up at her. “You had a man in your bed.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please tell me I won’t find him in a shallow grave.”

“Of course not,” he smirked. 

“Did you have a mission again?” she asked, throwing a leg over the bed and putting on her clothes. Five didn’t seem to even notice that she hadn’t been wearing them. 

“Ugh, yeah,” he sighed. “If Luther weren’t there, I would’ve left already.”

“You shouldn’t leave,” she said immediately. 

He frowned at her. 

His voice was different when he spoke again. “Last night was great, Vanya. I’m going to go though.”

“Don’t go!” she woke herself up with the force of speaking, and she stared up at the bewildered expression of the guy from the bar. 

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. 

“No, it’s fine,” he laughed. “I guess I could go for another round before I left.”

He had black hair and green eyes and he was good enough right then.

**IV. Age Fifty-Six: Five**

The mission he had just completed was in a timeline when she would’ve been alive. When he fell asleep in Germany, choosing a hotel that the Handler wouldn’t think anything of but had a sweet receptionist at the front desk who always left out a vase of Vanya’s favorite flowers. He knew it wasn’t her, the ages didn’t match, but this woman would work here for forty years, even if she didn’t know it. She also didn’t ever question when he came to this hotel years apart, probably not even recognizing him. 

He needed the comfort here. He wouldn’t have chosen this hotel for a job that he’d technically done in France if he hadn’t. The Handler didn’t question his decision to go here, or she’d be here already. In fact, the Handler was probably reeling from the fact that she had gotten him fucked up enough to successfully kill a twelve year old girl with long brown hair and bangs. 

A child. He’d killed a child. For the life of him, he didn’t know what he could’ve accomplished for a timeline in killing the child, but he suspected it had something much more sinister involved when he had seen her likeness to Vanya.

“ _ Monsieur _ ?” she had asked, brown eyes staring at him in fear as she regarded him in her kitchen. “ _ Qui êtes-vous? “ _

_ “Je suis désolé, _ ” he had whispered. He hated Reginald for a second, for teaching him French. It would be easier if she would speak in a language he couldn’t understand.  
  


“ _ Nous n’avons beaucoup d’argent, Monsieur. Elle est juste une fille. S’il vous plaît. _ ”

Five had turned stiffly, seeing the mother of the small girl.

It wasn’t Vanya. It wasn’t Vanya. It wasn’t Vanya.

But it was someone’s child nonetheless. When he had followed the order, he blinked over to Germany without giving a single shit if it pissed off the Handler. 

He grabbed a bottle of rum, tipping it back and letting it hit his throat. He drank enough that he would fall asleep just fine, reminding himself of when he was a younger man, surviving in the apocalypse. 

He lay against the pillows. Vanya would be 7 years old right now, trying to follow him around the mansion as he used his spatial jumps to beat Allison, Luther, Klaus, Ben, and Diego at tag. He wouldn’t have even known that, but he knew the date clearly. Their seventh birthday. They wouldn’t even know their names yet. Vanya would grab at his leg and tell him that she wanted to play too, and he’d tell her that she didn’t have powers and it was dangerous.

The little girl from earlier flashed to his mind. The Commission could easily have given the order to kill Vanya. They wouldn’t even know it existed. He was lucky they hadn’t. 

She’d fall asleep that night in her bed in a couple of hours, and a much younger Five would blink to her room and give her a teddy bear and tell her happy birthday and she’d smile very widely and say that he was her favorite and it would be the best present he’d ever receive in his life. 

When he sank into unconsciousness now, Vanya from the book cover glared at him. 

“Vanya,” he started. 

“You’re killing children now, huh?” she said, shoving him away. 

“It was an assignment.”

“Leave the commission.”

“Vanya, I  _ can’t. _ ”

She sneered. “I hope your next assignment is to kill me, so I don’t have to look at you anymore.”

When he woke up after she had gone, he didn’t try to go back to sleep. He couldn’t go back to the land of dreams for comfort any longer. 

“I promise I’ll get out and back to you,” he told the picture of her on the book’s cover. 

**V. Age Twenty-Eight: Vanya**

She didn’t want to fall asleep tonight. She didn’t think she’d want to wake up. 

The depression had reached a level that she had taken three pills in one sitting tonight, hoping that it would stifle this feeling. She could feel drowsiness from the pills overtake her though, and she sank against her pillow.

“You can’t do that,” Five commented, reading a newspaper. He was scanning an obituary report. 

Her name was what he was looking at.

“No,” she whispered. 

“Oh, Vanya, it’s only a dream,” he told her. 

“No, don’t go! Please”

“Wake up, V. It’s okay.”

“ _ Five!” _

She was screaming as she woke up, sobbing.

“ _ Klaus _ ?” 

“Surprise!” 

“Why? What are you…? Why are you here?”

His eyes were glazed over, pupils so wide that his eyes looked black. “Ben said I gotta be nicer now that Five is gone.” 

“Ben’s not here,” she snapped.

“No, no, I guess not,” Klaus said, and then he started crying. 

At him throwing his arms around her, whimpering Ben’s name, she wished that the men they both loved would just come home. 

Klaus was gone the next morning; she wouldn’t see him again until her father’s funeral. 

**VI. Age Twenty-Nine (Or Fifty-Eight)**

Vanya and Five stared at one another in shock.

It wasn’t a dream.

“How did you get home?” she whispered.

“If I tell you, will you hate me?”

“I couldn’t ever hate you.”

“We don’t have much time, please understand.” 

“I’ll make some coffee.”

Even the softest, kindest dreams were not as good as a miracle in reality. 

  
The dreams had never been kind enough anyway. 

**Author's Note:**

> French translations:
> 
> “Monsieur? Qui êtes-vous?” - “Sir? Who are you?”
> 
> “Je suis désolé.” - “I’m sorry.” 
> 
> “Nous n’avons beaucoup d’argent, Monsieur. Elle est juste une fille. S’il vous plaît. “ - “We don’t have a lot of money, sir. She is just a little girl. Please. “
> 
> (These might be bad translations and again if you notice me messing them up, I can change it- AP French was too long ago for me it seems 😂) 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I’m sorry this one turned out pretty angsty.


End file.
